In his own words

Recalling his first encounter with the musician,Ratnam said,“I met him at a social gathering and he invited me to his studio. I went after a few months and it was nothing like the big,equipped studios that I’m used to. It was a small room at the back of his house with his equipment and a swing,which many of us have since sat on.”

The director,who later launched Rahman as a film music composer in Roja,admits that he was so struck by the brilliance of the compositions he heard that he doubted their authenticity. “I couldn’t believe that such beautiful music was being produced by the equipment I was seeing. I played the scratches over and over again,looking for a possible flaw,but couldn’t point out a single one. Ever since then,I’ve been a fan of AR Rahman,the music composer,but I’m a bigger fan of AR Rahman,the person.”

After that encounter,Rahman went on to compose the music for each of Ratnam’s films.

However,Ratnam was not the only “mentor” in attendance at the launch. The Academy as well as Grammy Award-winning musician also thanked Subhash Ghai “for teaching the nuances of Bollywood music” and Ashutosh Gowariker “who taught me how to spell Oscars”. Also present were his film industry friends like directors Ram Gopal Varma — who gave him his break in Bollywood — Imtiaz Ali and Anthony D’Souza,lyricist Javed Akhtar and percussionist Sivamani.